OP-EDS
May 3, 2013
"Calming the West's Water Wars"
Los Angeles Times
By Scott Moore, Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Research Fellow, Sustainability Science Program/Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group
"The president and Congress, despite the political and organizational barriers, can nonetheless take steps to help end America's water wars. First, Congress should restore funding for the U.S. Water Resources Council and the regional River Basin Commissions. Before they were de-funded during the Reagan administration, these bodies served as focal points for water policy and as useful platforms for dialogue between states and the federal government. By fostering sustained, structured communication among Washington and the states themselves, they can help prevent disputes from arising in the first place."
AP Photo
March 28, 2013
"China's Massive Water Problem"
International Herald Tribune
By Scott Moore, Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Research Fellow, Sustainability Science Program/Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group
"Beijing needs to stop relying on technology to avoid making hard choices about scarce resources. The United States and the rest of the world need to push the Chinese government to make its development more sustainable through political reform, lest China's economy and social stability be endangered."
March 20, 2013
"China Needs More People Power to Control Pollution"
World Politics Review
By Scott Moore, Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Research Fellow, Sustainability Science Program/Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group
"China's major cities have long been notorious for their high levels of air and water pollution, but such visible signs of threats to human health are thrusting environmental hazards into the public eye like never before. The Chinese government has taken some steps to address public concern at these hazards, but if either history or the experience of other countries is any guide, Beijing needs to take public opinion seriously to avoid future environmental crises."
February 7, 2013
"What's the Most Critical and Under-appreciated Issue in International Security? World Peace"
Power & Policy Blog
By Scott Moore, Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Research Fellow, Sustainability Science Program/Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group
"...[I]t is clear that the international community possessed neither the analytic tools nor the institutional capabilities to deal with a world order in which ethno-religious groups, and not nation-states, were the primary operative actors. Which brings us back to the question: what if organized state violence and warfare is the exception rather than the rule in international security?"
January 23, 2013
"The People are Beijing's Ally in Fight for Cleaner Air"
The South China Morning Post
By Scott Moore, Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Research Fellow, Sustainability Science Program/Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group
"Beijing needs to learn, as other nations have, that popular participation is necessary to force entrenched business and bureaucratic interests to help clean up the environment. Until this happens, the US embassy's air quality monitor will continue to say what Chinese officials will not: China and its capital are gasping for air."
April 20, 2011
"Now is the Time to Be Bold: A Call for New Technology, Policy... and Thinking"
Washington Post
By Henry Lee, Director, Environment and Natural Resources Program
"The bottom line is that the United States must invest now in the development and implementation of new energy technologies. We need a new menu of energy options, which means: stable funding for energy R&D; strong incentives to pull new technologies into the market place; and effective mechanisms to ensure that technologies have a chance to compete."
AP Photo
March 8, 2010
"CCS: Competitive Today. We Cannot Wait until Tomorrow"
By Mohammed Al-Juaied, Former Visiting Scholar, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, 2008–2009
"Since last year, American Electric Power Mountaineer has employed CCS on a smaller scale of about 30 megawatts and, as such, is a unique example of CCS technology working today. As CCS scales up from this small size, the risks of capture and transport are negligible, making larger plants possible. Because renewables, for various reasons, cannot be implemented at the large scale sufficient to meet the 80 percent emissions reduction goals, we must deploy CCS for larger-scale commercialization. As a crucial means of decarbonizing some industrial processes, CCS will reduce emissions across industries, allowing chemical producers, for example, to meet their targets."
August 4, 2008
"Convincing the Climate-Change Skeptics"
Boston Globe
By John P. Holdren, Former Director and Faculty Chair, Science, Technology and Public Policy Program
"THE FEW climate-change "skeptics" with any sort of scientific credentials continue to receive attention in the media out of all proportion to their numbers, their qualifications, or the merit of their arguments. And this muddying of the waters of public discourse is being magnified by the parroting of these arguments by a larger population of amateur skeptics with no scientific credentials at all....The extent of unfounded skepticism about the disruption of global climate by human-produced greenhouse gases is not just regrettable, it is dangerous. It has delayed — and continues to delay — the development of the political consensus that will be needed if society is to embrace remedies commensurate with the challenge."
July 16, 2008
"Running on Empty and Spreading the Blame"
Boston Globe
By Henry Lee, Director, Environment and Natural Resources Program
Who is to blame for $4.00 gasoline?
September 26, 2007
"How to Build US-Iran Relations"
Boston Globe
By Abbas Maleki, Associate, International Security Program and Kaveh L. Afrasiabi
"...Iran has not suspended its uranium enrichment program, but it has not ignored the UN Security Council resolutions on Iran either, as can be discerned in the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency citing "significant progress" in Iran-IAEA cooperation. With the United States and Iran talking in Iraq and Iran-IAEA cooperation yielding concrete results in terms of Iran's nuclear transparency, the stage is potentially set for de-escalating the US-Iran tensions, particularly if both sides adopt a long-term view and sort out the security dimension."
